


For you, I would

by ElenyasBlood



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monsters, Protectiveness, on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 13:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30106347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenyasBlood/pseuds/ElenyasBlood
Summary: As a Witcher, it's Geralt's job to throw himself at every imminent threat as much as it's Jaskier's job as a bard to lay low and let the danger pass him by so he can live to tell the tale.It's an unwritten rule they both adhere to, until one night Jaskier doesn't, his careless actions bearing consequences upon them neither could have predicted.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 3
Kudos: 122





	For you, I would

Jaskier looks across the fire to find two distinctly golden eyes staring back at him through the haze of blistering flames. 

“See anything you like, Witcher?” he asks without thinking, mouth working on its own accord as he keeps plucking the strings of his lute. 

Geralt grunts dismissively in response before shuffling onto his side to settle facing away from Jaskier. He has been more taciturn than usual throughout the day, and Jaskier feels uneasy with it. The target of their current hunt—a Katakan that had been terrorizing the nearby villages—is hiding somewhere in the woods beyond the treeline, and their trek up into the mountains of the Northern Kingdoms has been long and arduous. For the past two days Jaskier has watched the landscape shift from the lush green and golds of the hinterlands to the precipitous world of coarse stone and the muted colors of an early fall. 

From where he sits, Jaskier can still make out the Witcher’s features in the flickering glow of the flames. His profile is dominated by sharp lines and harsh angles, and tension runs deep in the lines around his jaw. Strands of wayward white hair fall against his leather jerkin, and Jaskier feels his fingertips prick with the urge to reach out and run his hands through them. Two swords—one made from the finest silver and with an elegantly trimmed handle, and another one, dark in appearance and with runes etched along the shimmering blade—rest next to Geralt’s perch, mere inches away from where his hands are folded in his lap. 

Sighing, Jaskier attempts to wiggle himself into a more comfortable position before picking up his lute again. For a while he busies himself with his most recent composition—an epic tale of monsters and maidens—and when he finally finds the right tune, he starts humming along the grandiose melody. 

“Can’t this wait?” Geralt asks eventually, voice gruff. He doesn’t have to open his eyes for Jaskier to know what swims in those golden irides. Annoyance, exasperation, and somewhere underneath, the strained expression of a Witcher that never quite knows how to let go and unwind. 

Jaskier doesn’t falter in his play. “What are you worried about?” he asks, shooting a wink across the campfire’s crackling flame towards the groaning Witcher. “Worried the beast might surprise you in your beauty sleep?” 

Jaskier grins to himself as he watches Geralt swallow dryly, his studded leather jerkin clinking quietly when he turns to throw a hard look towards the bard. “Yes,” he replies after a brief pause. 

“What about your magical necklace? Isn’t it supposed to warn you whenever there’s some unnatural spawn around?” Jaskier says bluntly, interrupting his play to sit up a little straighter against the saddle bags he is using as a backrest. 

“Useless against Katakans,” Geralt bites out. “Vampires don’t play by the rules. They’re undetectable.” 

Jaskier feels his stomach plummet at the revelation, and setting his lute aside, he looks around. The camp they have set up on the clearing is much like any other during their travels, with the horses grazing idly nearby, and fire crackling warmly between them. Travel gear lies strewn across the patch of moss to Jaskier’s right—a blackened pot, a pair of gloves, a small flask full of oil, and a waterskin leaking into the woven fabric of his hooded cloak—and on all accounts there seems nothing out of order to Jaskier. 

Except when next he spares a glance across the flames, Geralt’s fingers have inched ever closer towards the nearby sword hilt, and tension turns the lines of his body into tight, angular shapes. The bulk of his chest rises steadily with his breath, but Jaskier knows that the muscles below the heavy armor are coiled tightly, ready to spring. 

“And you were planning on telling me that when, exactly?” Jaskier inquires incredulously after a thorough inspection of his immediate surroundings. 

Geralt shrugs lightly. “I just did,” he says, and turns fully towards the treeline and away from Jaskier’s disapproving gaze. 

Shadows loom beyond the reach of the fire’s glow, and fumbling for his own weapon Jaskier shifts into a more upright position. He finds the dagger dangling off his belt where it belongs, cold and heavy and reassuring, and the sensation manages to quell the hectic terror fluttering in Jaskier’s stomach. He musters the lute sitting in the dust to his right, and deciding that he’s done enough composing for the night, he shoves it quietly back into its pouch before reaching for his traveller’s cloak. 

The rough-spun wool is coarse under his touch, and it takes Jaskier three failed attempts to yank the heavy fabric over his shoulders before he settles. Beyond the light of the fire, the trees stand still and mute in the darkness like soldiers. With the absence of music, the sounds of the night creep in, and Jaskier tilts his head as though the gesture might enhance his mere human ability to listen. 

Wind is howling down from the mountain’s craggy slopes, carrying the smell of snow and wilderness into the shallow foothills. A wolf pack howls in the far distance, their voices doleful and manyfold, eerie enough to send a thrill of adrenaline through Jaskier’s blood. Cinders crackle loudly when a log collapses into the blaze, and Jaskier watches a cluster of embers rise towards the pitch-black sky like fireflies. 

It is Geralt who eventually gets up to check on the horses, his footsteps falling heavy on the soil next to Jaskier as he trudges by. The breeze carries a whiff of metal and leather, sweat and upturned earth towards Jaskier, and chasing Geralt’s familiar scent, Jaskier nestles deeper into the warmth of his cloak. Exhausted from their trek—and spooked by the terrifying prospect of an undetectable, blood-sucking monster nearby—Jaskier feels too raw, too exposed to even sing to himself and yet sleep comes quickly. Jaskier dozes off with his face pressed into the hooded cloak, and with one hand firmly wrapped around the dagger’s reassuring weight, he succumbs to sleep’s hazy clutches. 

-+-

The piercing whinny of a horse tears through Jaskier’s dreams like a blade through flesh, and gasping, he comes to. Adrenaline catapults him out of his cloak and onto his feet, his dagger flying out of its leather sheath and into his dominant hand. There is some shuffling to his right, followed by the sound of branches snapping under heavy footfalls, and in the fuzzy glow of the dying fire Jaskier spots the Katakan in the distance. 

It is huge, a mountain of matted fur and hulking muscle, its garish features obscured by deep lines around its bat-like nose. Twisted horns sit atop a head as thick as an ox’s, and the flames’ orange flicker gleams off hooked claws. Momentum drives the beast forward, its tattered, rudimentary wings flapping uselessly as it stumbles forward and into the light, charging directly at Jaskier who can’t seem to move away. 

With leaden feet, Jaskier stands and stares at the monstrosity as if in trance, until he can feel the ground beneath him shake with its hulking advance. 

“Move!” A voice cracks through the night like a whip, and Jaskier has not enough time to process the word when he can already feel the whirring pressure of _Yrden_ pass him by before crashing into the soil in front of the vampiric abomination. The Witcher sign’s magic is instant, slowing the Katakan’s advance considerably and long enough for Geralt to appear next to Jaskier. 

“I said _move_!” he barks as he passes by Jaskier, silver sword gleaming in the campfire’s dying light, and eyes wild with determination. His gloved hand is heavy as it lands on Jaskier’s shoulder and Jaskier gasps when he is shoved out of the way and into the safety of Geralt’s flank. “Get out of here!”

And Jaskier really wants to leave, turn away and run as far as his legs can carry him, towards where he can’t smell the foul stink of the Katakan’s gaping maw. But as he watches Geralt hurl himself towards the beast without a moment’s hesitation he can feel his legs shake with the mere effort of keeping him upright. 

“I can’t!” he yells over the scraping of metal against gnarly horns, and watches in horror when the beast’s jaw snaps mere inches away from Geralt’s face. Its unnaturally long arms scramble against Geralt’s jerkin, catching in the studded leather as it tries to pry Geralt off its rapidly heaving flank. But Geralt is cunning and strong—altered by mutation and stronger than any human could ever be—and he’s already found a weak spot in the Katakan’s rash defense. With his sword held at an angle he rears back and the beast has barely enough time to process the events before Geralt’s drives the blade through its shoulder. 

Jaskier wishes he didn’t recognize the sound of severed tendons and lacerated skin, but after months on the road with a Witcher, he does. The beast lets out a ghastly howl, tearing itself loose to wrench just out of Geralt’s reach, closer towards the fire where Jaskier can see blood sloshing onto the trampled ground. 

The Katakan’s pained expression lasts for just a moment, and Jaskier gets only a brief glimpse of the way Geralt is towering between him and the monstrosity before the Witcher launches forward again, this time aiming for the Katakan’s crippled wings. He hacks into the leathery skin with abandon, his body a flurry of gleaming silver and black leather in the half-dark. Hair as fair as moonlight flickers like a flame, and Jaskier is transfixed, entirely devoted to the performance of raw strength and deadly precision—the Witcher’s trade. 

He’s briefly distracted by Roach’s panicked braying somewhere distant, and the way faint morning light is starting to bloom on the horizon. It’s enough for Jaskier to see the hooked claw that comes up to slash at Geralt’s flank, once, twice, until it finds purchase and a nasty gash appears in Geralt’s jerkin. 

“Fuck,” Geralt curses and scrambles for sure footing in the aftermath of the terrible blow. He has enough restraint to not clutch his side, instead positioning himself just off the side of the vampiric abomination, sword raised and teeth bared. His expression is unreadable to Jaskier, his features obscured by the fuzzy half-light and the way his hair is falling into his face in cascades. He grunts when he manages to block the Katakan’s next swipe with the flat side of his sword, and uses the leverage to push the beast back, towards the sweltering embers. 

A roar shakes the clearing when the knotted curls around the beast’s misshapen feet catch on fire, and with its focus briefly drawn to the searing pain around its grotesque ankles Geralt takes a moment to collect his composure. Jaskier can see wetness spilling from the gash in the leather jerkin and feels ill with the thought of it, fingers itching to press against the bleeding wound and staunch the flow. He tries to swallow the panic, tears his gaze away from Geralt’s heaving chest just to catch the Katakan’s unsteady gaze as it flickers towards Jaskier for a split second. 

There’s something ancient and frenzied lurking in the depths of the monster’s eyes, hidden below the heavy brow and framed by ashen skin, and Jaskier has barely a moment left to yell “Watch out!” before the beast lurches toward a momentarily distracted Geralt. 

In the few seconds before Jaskier decides that he can’t let Geralt die tonight, not like this and not now, the sound of blood thundering in his ears is drowned out by utter clarity. He knows that Geralt is not ready for the next attack as sure as he knows his own heart--knows who it beats for, has been beating for since the first time he laid eyes on the quiet, unapproachable Witcher--knows that the beast won’t hesitate to drive its filthy claws through the soft hollow below Geralt’s throat if given the chance. He knows he’s not a brave man, too, and yet when he launches himself forward and against the Katakan’s distorted, malformed shape what surprises him most is the complete absence of fear. 

He’s distantly aware of how laughably insignificant his sacrifice might be if he doesn’t succeed in his endeavour, and the last thing he hears is Geralt’s panicked voice calling out for him before he crashes into the deformed mass of the Katakan’s body.

The thing is all jagged bones and spasming muscle, and Jaskier aches with the harsh impact. Geralt’s voice is drowned out by the ringing in Jaskier’s ears, and thoroughly winded by the collision, Jaskier gasps as his shoulder knocks painfully against the beast’s flank. 

“Gods, no,” Jaskier wheezes, feeling his knees buckle as his feet slam into the ground hard. He has to will his eyes open, and whips around in time to see a set of spindly fingers aimed to swipe at him. Firelight glints off barbed claws, and Jaskier has two seconds to regret every step that has brought him to this moment before the Katakan tears into him. Only the regret doesn’t come, and neither does the visceral pain of being severed in half by a vampiric monstrosity. 

Instead the world shifts in front of Jaskier when the Katakan’s heavy body gets yanked away, towards where Geralt has dug his heels into the soil, sword raised and his gaze murderous. 

“It’s me you want,” he shouts over the beast’s raspy breath. “Come and get me!” 

The bat-like monstrosity snarls at the sound of Geralt’s voice. Its jaws click open, and underneath its heavy footfalls Jaskier can make out a single word, spat out in a gravelly voice dripping with disdain: “Witcher.” 

Geralt doesn’t wait for the beast to come to him. Instead he charges forward, eyes never leaving his adversary and hands wielding the deadly silver weapon. He launches a series of attacks at the Katakan, metal scraping against leathery skin, hacking away and landing blow after blow before he uses _Aard_ to catch the fiend off balance. The sound of the Katakan’s claws jabbing uselessly against metal is followed by the sight of Geralt thrusting his weapon through the bony ridges of the beast’s chest plate until only the hilt sticks out.

Jaskier watches wide-eyed as the Katakan loses its footing and sinks into the soil, gurgling wetly. There is something hauntingly human about the way the bizarre being clutches its chest to keep the blood from welling through its claws. Its body convulses as it falls forward, the tattered wings twitching uselessly as the life drains from it, and deafening silence falls over the clearing. 

Geralt lowers his weapon and steps back once the Katakan’s corpse stops twitching in the soil before he turns around. His eyes are wild as they fall onto Jaskier, glowering, and anger twists his mouth into a hard, tight line until not even the messy spill of his disheveled hair manages to soften his expression. He rams the tip of his sword into the upheaved earth with such force it shakes the very ground Jaskier stands on, and then Geralt stomps toward him, sure and broad and livid and and the bottom of Jaskier’s stomach drops out. 

“What the fuck was that?” Geralt shouts as he comes to a halt right in front of the bard. “Why didn’t you run like I told you to?”

Jaskier tamps down on the nervousness inside the pit of his stomach and clears his throat. “Because you needed my help,” he says and gathers courage from the way his voice wavers only a little bit. 

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Geralt barks, and Jaskier notices the way his hands curl into hard, sharp fists against the black leather of his jerkin. “I’m a Witcher, and Witchers work alone.”

“Oh yeah?” Jaskier snaps back and adjusts his stance until he’s right in Geralt’s face. “Because if I remember correctly I just saved your pretty ass right there, _Witcher._ ” 

Geralt’s eyes appear brighter in the campfire’s half-light, less human in their eerie golden glow. “I had the Katakan right where I wanted it before you went and did something so stupid and reckless! As if—” Geralt swallows hard, and Jaskier can see his jaw tighten painfully.

“As if I’m not the useless bystander for once?” Jaskier finishes the sentence when Geralt doesn’t. He is angry now, too, adrenaline still kicking through his body when he shoves an accusatory finger against Geralt’s heaving chest. “Is it so hard for you to just thank me for saving your sorry ass and move on? If you’re worried about having to share your fame—” 

A growl rumbles in Geralt’s throat. “I don’t give a fuck about fame, Jaskier. You could’ve gotten yourself killed!” 

“So could _you_ ,” Jaskier deflects, heart flying into his throat at the mere thought. He can feel Geralt’s breath against his face—warm and tickling and _alive_ —and has to remind himself to remain angry. 

“I’m not a human,” Geralt barks. “My body can heal itself. Getting in harm's way is part of who I am.” 

“So?” Jaskier spits, the tip of his finger now digging into the stiff leather across Geralt’s chest. “Just because you won’t die from a wound like that—” he pointedly gestures towards the gash across the Witcher’s flank—“doesn’t mean you can’t feel pain. Don’t think for a second I’m not aware of what this life has done to you, Geralt of Rivia; I’ve seen your scars.” 

“You’re missing the point,” Geralt snarls, breath falling from his lips in shallow huffs. “It’s not about pain, it's about survival. I can get away with a moment of thoughtless recklessness but you, Jaskier—you could’ve died tonight and there would’ve nothing I could’ve done to stop it from happening, you idiotic little lark.” 

Jaskier’s mouth falls open in silence and he’s still fumbling for an answer when Geralt bends down to close the distance between them. “You could’ve died tonight,” he repeats in a voice so raw and broken, and Jaskier has barely a moment to process the way Geralt’s hand rises to his cheek before the Witcher crushes their mouths together. 

Geralt tastes of salt and warm skin, his lips rough when he drags them across Jaskier’s—clumsy and panicked. The touch is too harsh, too chaotic, and Jaskier’s mouth stings with the hasty shove of it, lips bruising under the frenzied, messy draw of Geralt’s desperate ministrations. 

“Geralt,” he murmurs when Geralt pulls back an inch to catch his breath. “How long—”

There isn’t enough time to finish the question before the words are swallowed by Geralt’s hungry mouth, the way he curls his tongue behind Jaskier’s teeth with wanton recklessness. Heat furls through Jaskier at the sensation of Geralt’s thumb finding the shallow dip below his throat, pushing gently, until the rough pads of Geralt’s fingers catch against Jaskier’s delicate skin—and Jaskier whimpers. His heart hurts from pounding and he kisses back with all the silent devotion he has kept buried inside his chest since the day they met.

A string of saliva pulls between their lips when Geralt draws back again, eyes wild and furious, still. “Fuck,” he mutters into the stifled air between them, but doesn’t stop Jaskier when picks up his other arm by the wrist to set it onto the narrow line of his hip. 

They stand in silence for a moment, their breathing slowing as it falls in hot puffs against the skin of their faces. Morning is dawning across the horizon and Jaskier is dimly aware that there is something he should do. But with Geralt holding him so tenderly and his hand still resting against his throat, warm and heavy, Jaskier can only blink owlishly into the fuzzy light, his body swaying forward until he feels the lean expanse of Geralt’s stomach brush against his own. 

When Jaskier eventually turns his head, his eyes fall onto the Katakan’s bleeding corpse, still lying motionless in the soil where the Witcher felled it, and with a start his brain remembers. He pulls back with a gasp, urgency driving his words. “You’re wounded,” he exclaims as his hand falls to the patch of shredded leather across Geralt’s side. 

“Hardly,” Geralt replies, but when Jaskier drags him into the fire’s dying glow Geralt lets him. He sits and watches as Jaskier shoves a log into the embers, and doesn’t protest when Jaskier gathers his waterskin from where it lies discarded by the campsite and an almost clean cloth from the saddlebag before kneeling next to Geralt in the dirt. 

Jaskier swallows as he peels the leather away just enough to catch a brief glimpse of the deep marks the Katakan’s claw has left behind. “Looks nasty,” he comments, and when Geralt remains stoically silent, he risks another look. 

The skin across Geralt’s flank is torn where the Katakan has gouged through the jerkin, and chunks of raw, pink flesh are visible to the naked eye. Blood pools between the ridges and valleys of Geralt’s ribcage, and he hisses tenderly when Jaskier brushes a probing finger across the wound’s jagged edge. 

“It needs tending to,” he whispers, jerking his hand away at Geralt’s obvious discomfort. “But I don’t think I have the right tools at my disposal.” 

Geralt shrugs. “It’ll be fine before the sun has fully risen above the mountain range,” he states bluntly. “I have _Swallow_ left to help with that.”

“Let me at least staunch the blood flow, then,” Jaskier says quietly, his voice sounding timid in the cold morning air. When he looks up, he finds Geralt staring right back at him, catching his gaze in thoughtful contemplation. His white hair spills in long tangles across his shoulders where it wrangled free off his ponytail, and his features are softened by the fire shine. Jaskier resists the urge to reach out and trace the familiar curve of the Witcher’s jaw, shuffles closer instead until the length of his thigh presses against Geralt’s. 

Eventually, Geralt nods, and Jaskier exhales a breath of sheer relief. He fusses with the clean cloth he found in his pack until it’s folded to his satisfaction, before he starts to lightly dab around the wound. Blood steeps the cotton instantly until all the white is varnished with red, and the air smells of copper. Belatedly, Jaskier notices the way his fingers shake as he holds the cloth against the Witcher’s ribs, and his smile is nervous when he looks up. 

“That’s a lot of blood,” he says because he’d rather talk than sit and panic in silence. “You gotta buy some extra ales tonight to make up for the loss. There’s an inn the next town over, been there before. The crowd was shit, but some of the rooms have a pretty sweet view into the valley. Maybe we should check it out, stay a while until—”

Geralt’s palm is warm when it falls onto the back of Jaskier’s hand, its weight stilling the tremor in his fingers. “What you did tonight, Jaskier, don’t ever do that again,” Geralt says quietly and his words are laced with sorrow. 

Jaskier nods. 

“If you had died tonight, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself knowing that you sacrificed yourself for me.” 

There’s a brief pause in which Geralt squeezes Jaskier hand softly, his eyes swimming in and out of focus with unacknowledged emotions. The sharp edges of his jerkin dig into Jaskier’s clothes when he leans in to tip their foreheads together and his voice fades to a whisper when he says. “I can’t stand the thought of losing you.” 

It’s a dangerous confession, and Jaskier knows what it cost Geralt to admit to such a thing. Jaskier is human, fragile, made of breakable bones and with no mutations to survive in the wilderness. He’s a liability in the eyes of many, a nuisance in those of most who come across their way, and a Witcher can’t afford to mingle with either. 

Jaskier sighs at the sensation of Geralt’s fingers lacing with his own against the blood-stained cloth. “I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he says, and watches the pale morning light wash the gold out of Geralt’s eyes. “Besides, I haven't finished _The Ballad of the White Wolf_ yet, and I can’t go around playing _The Fishmonger’s Daughter_ up and down the country, now can I?” 

Geralt’s huffed laugh is a puff of warm breath against Jaskier’s cheek, and his stomach swoops at the sight of the Witcher’s lips curling into a rare smile. “Now, how about I find us something for breakfast? You stay put and keep applying pressure to that gross gash while I have a look around. I might even still have some of that spiced tea blend I purchased in Kaer Trolde.”

“Hm,” Geralt hums in agreement, and Jaskier can feel the Witcher watching him closely as he gets up on stiffened limbs. Geralt’s blood has turned sticky on his hand, and Jaskier hastily wipes it on his breeches before he sets his plan into motion. 

The morning is cold and frost nips at Jaskier’s cheeks as he checks on the horses, boils water, digs through his saddle bags until he finds bread and jerky. He promptly drops his findings next to a still Geralt, and he _knows_. Knows that Geralt is just indulging him. That his blood has long stopped welling up from beneath the torn skin and the mutated tissue is already starting to knit together. Soon the injury will fade into nothing but one of many scars, but for now Jaskier needs to take care of his Witcher, and Geralt lets him. 

They drink spiced tea from a wooden cup until their stomachs are warm with the taste of cloves and cinnamon leaf, and when the sun comes climbing across the mountain tops they get ready to leave the clearing behind. 

“About that inn,” Jaskier says as he’s clumsily hauling himself onto Asphodel’s back before grabbing the lute from its pouch, pulling it into his lap. 

Geralt grunts and is back to glowering chastisingly at Jaskier. “Lead the way,” he says, despite his evident disapproval, and steers Roach behind Jaskier’s dapple gray horse. “And no _Fishmonger._ ”

The smile Jaskier cracks is wide and dazzling. “Try and stop me, Witcher,” he dares, and can’t help but yelp in amusement at the sour expression on Geralt’s face. 

**Author's Note:**

> just a small, self-indulgent piece. i love these boys dearly and one day i'll get to write more of them, i swear. beta'd by the endlessly selfless and patient [jess](https://twitter.com/maccachino).
> 
> say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nojingyinocare) if you wanna. :3


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